


beautiful he stirs up still things

by seadlings



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Ben Arnold Is A Disaster 2k21, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide attempt, Jack Wright Is Trans 2k21, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Sammy Stevens Is A Big Boi 2k21, Self-Harm, friends hurting each other and then talking about it and growing and healing as people!, recovery is a long road you have to choose again and again, that last one isn't directly articulated but i will get that into another fic bc it's IMPORTANT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28889703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seadlings/pseuds/seadlings
Summary: Sometimes all it takes is a piano to turn your heart back on. And some yelling.(In which Ben is a bi disaster who talks too fast, Emily is a brilliant miracle of a human, and Sammy plays piano good. And has communication problems.)
Relationships: Ben Arnold/Emily Potter, Ben Arnold/Emily Potter/Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright, Ben Arnold/Sammy Stevens, Sammy Stevens/Jack Wright
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	beautiful he stirs up still things

**Author's Note:**

> see end notes for detailed trigger warnings! be safe!
> 
> welcome to the longest thing i have ever written! it started as a self-indulgent cracky pit for me to dump my music degree garbage into, but then i found the wip two weeks ago and accidentally turned it into this monstrosity.
> 
> if you want to listen to the concerto from Sammy's video, i recommend [this recording](https://youtu.be/bp2hHNDtCqw) of Vladimir Ashkenazy with the London Symphony Orchestra. title is taken from Anne Carson's translation of Sappho fragment 43:
> 
> ]  
> ]  
> ]  
> ]beautiful he  
> ]stirs up still things  
> ]exhaustion the mind  
> ]settles down  
> ]but come O beloveds  
> ]for day is near

To say Ben Arnold had a competency kink was kind of an understatement, but he’d take it.

The problem was that it hit him at the worst times, and sometimes in relation to people he had no interest in, other than that passing moment of watching them be really, really good at something.

It happened when he spent an hour talking to Ron while he built a fucking canoe, like that was just something people _did_.

It happened with Troy when Ben, particularly wired after a long night sitting up with his _thought journal_ and a 12-pack (now 6-pack) of Monster, babbled and watched him make the most beautiful (and tastiest) goddamn pancakes he’d ever seen. Yes, even prettier (and tastier) than Rose’s.

It happened with Lily, and Agent Spears, and, one guilt-inducing time, Mary Jensen. And Emily, obviously, over and over again.

And now, it was happening with Sammy.

Ben had had moments, before this. Little things: a thrill when Sammy defused an argument on-air with a single well-placed quip, a twinkly kind of awe when Sammy drummed along with songs on the radio and still managed to drive perfectly (and sing along, in the rare moments his self-consciousness left him alone). It was the effortless twist of his hands as he twirled his hair into its bun, and his inexplicable ability to perfectly jigsaw all of the mobile broadcast equipment into the ancient King Falls AM van, every time.

In hindsight, Ben realized it was more than just moments. But to be fair, he’d had a lot on his mind the entire time he’d known Sammy, so it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t noticed this developing trend.

It was one thing, though, to get little head rushes when friends showed off their skills—and an entirely different one, to watch your best friend play the piano like a fucking god and immediately want to tear his clothes off. And maybe cry a little.

* * *

“Music? For real?”

Sammy had an entire pidgin language comprised of sighs and microexpressions, in which Ben was fluent. The drawn-out exhale and slow blink meant that Sammy was resigned to an annoying conversation.

“For real,” he said.

“Wow,” Ben said, surprised. “That’s not what I expected. I thought for sure it had been, like…”

“Comm arts? Journalism? English?” Sammy’s tone was dry, expression a solid four on the sass scale.

“I mean,” Ben said with half of a laugh. “Those are all pretty solid conclusions to draw, man. How was I supposed to know?”

“You weren’t,” Sammy said. “That’s kind of the point of not talking about it.”

Ah, the Sammy Stevens Withholds It All Gambit. That old chestnut.

“Right,” Ben said, slow and deeply sarcastic. “Because God forbid someone find out you know music theory. You might get asked about key signatures! Man, don’t you just hate that? F-flat this, A-sharp that, yadda yadda, am I right?”

“Neither of those are real keys.”

“A-ha! I got you,” Ben exclaimed, pounding a hand on the table in excitement that was only about 60% feigned. He was being silly, mostly, but also he was truly, genuinely delighted about Sammy having unanticipated specialized skills like off-the-noggin musical trivia.

Sammy, for his part, had long learned to anticipate Ben’s zest for life and its often high-decibel soundscape. Instead of jumping, or flinching, or looking at all surprised, he squinted at Ben.

“How?” he asked, incredulous. “In what way have you gotten me? I just told you that I have a music degree. Music knowledge is kind of a given.”

“Yeah, but it’s still exciting,” Ben said. He beamed at Sammy. “I like getting you to info-dump. That was definitely more of an info-sprinkle, but we’ll get there.”

There was a little line in Sammy’s right cheek, about a half-inch from the corner of his mouth, and it only appeared when he smiled, or was about to smile, or was vaguely considering smiling. Which was how Ben knew when Sammy was repressing a smile—there, the little line, popping up to say hello. Ben was clearly winning.

What, exactly, he was winning was yet to be seen, because, as Emily had told him, you couldn’t win a conversation. But there was something good brewing, and that was more than enough for him.

“You really don’t want to get me started on the music rants,” Sammy replied. “They can get violent.”

“Actually, I would love to get you started on the music rants. Tell me your opinions on Andrew Lloyd Webber—I’ve heard he’s polarizing.”

Sammy snorted.

“I got tired of bitching about Webber in freshman year. Nice try, though.”

“I’ll crack you yet, Stevens.”

“ _Mmhmm._ ”

* * *

Ben was sort of right. He did crack him—but not really the way he expected. It was more like Sammy cracked himself.

Instead, Sammy rapidly resigned himself to being prodded for information about his sordid past as a piano man. He started answering questions (with many a sigh), and stopped turning music off as soon as Ben got home, which was fascinating because he listened to a lot of classical music.

Ben slogged in from the store one afternoon a few weeks later and was greeted with Sammy at their tiny kitchen table.

“What’s on the playlist today?” he asked while putting away groceries.

This had become routine. Sammy listened to something new, and Ben asked about it. Responses varied: sometimes it was just the composer’s name and the title of the piece, and sometimes Ben caught him feeling feisty and was rewarded with snide comments about the conductor or a little backstory. 

One time, he got a rant about violinists Ben had never heard of. He understood very little of what was said, but it ended with, “All I’m saying is Hilary Hahn could beat Jascha Heifetz in a street fight any day of the week.” So Ben was satisfied.

The first part of Sammy’s answer followed the pattern. He said, “Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto.”

Ben nodded and waited for more, if more was coming, and Sammy surprised him by adding, in an undertone, “It’s me playing.”

This was clearly an offering of some kind. When Ben turned to look at him, Sammy was curled in on himself a little, spine bowed as he stared unseeingly at his laptop.

Ben kept quiet, listening with new ears as the piano peeked out from the orchestra’s texture, a soft swell of sunlight.

It was beautiful in a big, wordless kind of way. It was the vista at the top of a good mountain, or the realization that every human who ever lived had looked up and seen the same stars he saw every night.

Sammy had shown him a lot of his beauty involuntarily. It was in his wit, his kindness, his fierce support of his loved ones. It was in his smile, and his freckles. The way his blonde eyelashes caught light. The ongoing, eternal revelation of strawberry blonde hair that had grown out enough to tumble past his shoulders.

But the deliberate offering of that beauty, that grace he carried with him always, was a rare thing. The lovely pieces you could offer of your own self were often closely guarded and fragile. Vulnerabilities kept hidden. And Sammy was a master at keeping things close to his chest, with a strong tendency to only let them go if they were pried from him by force.

In spite of his reflexive defensiveness, Sammy was showing his soft underbelly of his own volition. He was saying _do what you will with this, but please be gentle_. Ben could barely breathe for the weight of trust here.

“God, Sammy,” he said, and crossed to sit at the table. “This is… I don’t know. Gorgeous? Mind-blowing?” _Upsettingly hot?_

Sammy’s sigh was soft and embellished with a hint of laughter. He carded his fingers into the hair at his nape, a favored self-soothe he did when his anxiety was on an abrupt downswing. A good sign.

“Thanks,” he said.

They sat, just listening, until Ben realized that it wasn’t just sound—it was video, too. The file was open on Sammy’s computer, and Ben was sort of wary of watching at first. Was he meant just to listen, not see? But Sammy had his eyes closed now, so Ben snuck a glance.

He couldn’t look away.

Sammy was somewhere in his early twenties in the video. His hair was short and orderly, and he was wearing a vest, and he looked _good_. He looked alive, in a way Ben didn’t think he had ever seen. His Sammy carried a constant tension with him. Ben hadn’t noticed this until he learned about Jack, but it became apparent after that. Something he had unconsciously read as social anxiety—wariness in his eyes, a tightness in his shoulders—became the unceasing weight of grief and self-recrimination.

This younger Sammy inhabited every part of his body while he played, so much so that it was more like watching a dancer than a pianist. He was mobile, nearly lithe as he arced away from the keyboard on triumphant phrases, swayed when he was being tender, curled protectively over the keys for the fast parts that fell somewhere between joy and fury.

Ben thought, somewhat guiltily, that Sammy played the piano the way some people (good, hot, attentive people) fucked, ergo Sammy in bed must be _devastating_. He was focused and powerful and so incredibly open. Everything was bursting out of him, like he couldn’t hold a single feeling in—like he didn’t want to.

This was what freedom looked like on Sammy Stevens. This was what _ecstasy_ looked like.

Ben couldn’t tell if it broke his heart or if it made him happy. Either way, the symphony racing to its jubilant end was perfect accompaniment to the way the earth had just shifted under his feet.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that Sammy was phenomenally talented, but being prepared to be wowed by people didn’t make the actuality of their awesomeness any less affecting.

Ben wanted to yell, and cry, and hug Sammy until his face turned blue. Better yet, he wanted to climb into Sammy’s lap and kiss him until the heat death of the universe.

But Sammy’s eyes were open now, and he was avoiding looking at Ben in that way that screamed _Contents: Fragile_. Which meant he was at his most self-critical, which meant he couldn’t hear praise without transmuting it into ichor that he would drown himself in later.

So instead of opening the verbal floodgates on his awe, Ben asked, “When was this?”

“Junior year of college,” Sammy said. He was holding onto a cup of long-cold coffee like a lifeline. “Most music schools have a concerto competition where you bring in a piece you’ve prepared, and if you win, you get to play it with a full orchestra.”

“And you won?”

Sheepishness was a weird look on Sammy, but there it was.

“Yeah,” he said. “It was fucking terrifying. Honestly, I didn’t even want to do it, but my teacher had a tendency to bulldoze people into applying. And I was a pushover at 20.”

“Most of us are,” Ben said, rueful. Oh, the things he’d been bullied into in his youth.

“You’re thinking about the Delta Psi party, aren’t you?”

“I am, indeed,” Ben said. “And you can fuck right off.”

Sammy laughed.

“Tou-chy,” he said. Ben smacked his arm, playing at offense he promptly gave up as fake by snickering.

“Ru-ude,” Ben sing-songed back, and then got up to make a fresh pot of coffee. The activity was more for something to do while he processed than because he actually needed the caffeine, but still.

A few minutes passed in silence before Sammy surprised Ben yet again by picking up the thread Ben had let drop.

“I was happy with it in the end,” Sammy said. “Picking this piece was a bit of an accident, and I hated it, at first. Rachmaninoff’s a bitch and a half, on a good day, and I wasn’t having a whole lot of those back then. But I started doing the research I was supposed to have done from the get-go, just sort of pawing around for something to do that wasn’t banging my head against the first eight goddamn measures, and I found all this stuff on—”

He trailed off, tapping absently at his cup with a finger.

“Rachmaninoff fell into this really deep depression after his first symphony premiered,” he said. “He couldn’t play, he couldn’t compose. He was a mess for six years, and then the first big thing he put out after being in this really dark place was this concerto. He dedicated it to his psychotherapist. And I sat and listened to this recording of Ashkenazy and the LSO, and I really heard it for the first time.”

Sammy looked so far away, as he spoke. There was a furrow between his eyebrows that Ben always longed to smooth away with his thumb—but right now, the frown was a thoughtful one. Ben was enraptured by him. His (very green, very pretty) eyes were distant and unfocused, and the pensive downturn of his mouth didn’t erase the catlike curl it wore at rest or in smiles.

“It was like, “ _Oh, this is mine_.” And it was. I felt the first movement of this piece more than I think I’ve ever felt anything.”

Ben had to remind himself how to breathe.

“It must have showed, if you won,” Ben said.

Sammy nodded, gaze still far away.

“Yeah,” he said, and then he was blinking, coming back. He looked at Ben, clear-eyed.

“Anyway. I had about a hundred panic attacks before the performance, but the last few weeks, Jack started hanging out in my practice room while I was working. Just being there. Having someone listen to me fuck things up over and over again shouldn’t have helped, but it did. By the time I was warming up for the performance, he’d heard the entire thing at least ten times—and, mind you, half of those runs were horrible—so it was like... One person in that concert hall had heard me screw up in every conceivable way, so nothing I could do would surprise him. He would still want to hang out with me even if I fucked up, and he was one person in a 1,200-seat crowd, but I realized he was the only one whose opinion mattered. So I sat down and I played the damn thing.”

He could see it: that lanky, gorgeous, 20 year-old Sammy doing ineffective breathing exercises backstage, but still sitting his ass down on that bench and playing. Ben had an overwhelming surge of pride for him. He’d seen firsthand how good Sammy was at giving up, and how ready he was to do it.

But Jack had helped him stick to his guns. Jack had been what got Sammy out there.

Ben was gonna hug the crap out of that guy, when he met him.

“God, I can’t even imagine. 1,200 seats? That’s— The high school auditorium only fit 200, and I still had a heart attack every time I got up there.”

“I mean, the odds of you making an ass of yourself while singing and dancing were probably a lot higher than mine. I just had to sit on a bench and hit some keys at the right time,” Sammy said, amused.

“That’s fair. But still.”

“Still,” he agreed.

Sammy let him watch the recording all the way through later, which Ben hadn’t expected. He’d asked, 80% sure that the answer would be an evasive no, but Sammy had just made a face and emailed him a copy.

When he sat down with it that night, Ben had to pause it not even thirty seconds in and start it over again.

It began with seven chords that told him so much more about Sammy goddamn Stevens than he thought he’d have ever figured out on his own. They were tender and harsh in equal measure. Deliberate, conflicted. They _ached_.

On the fifth restart, he didn’t stop until the finale he’d listened to with Sammy earlier, and then he just sat and thought, _I love him_ , over and over again until the words had lost all meaning.

* * *

“Okay, but is it really a kink? Like, evolutionarily speaking, being into other members of our species for being good at things is pretty much a given. You know, like how bowerbirds get the girl by weaving the prettiest... bower... thing. Being good at things is hot! That’s just how it is!”

“Christ, Arnold,” Lily said, and Ben reflected on every life choice that had led him to be seated at a hole-in-the-wall bar in Big Pine with Lily Wright at 5 pm on a Wednesday, and found them all suddenly wanting.

“What, I’m not allowed to debate semantics?”

“No, you’re not,” she said, doing that thing where she raised one eyebrow a fraction of an inch and made you instantly consider returning to the point on your own timeline where you were a single-cell organism. How did she do that?

“Well that’s just— It’s— Fine,” Ben said, throwing his hands up with an acrobatic eyeroll. “I don’t even know why we’re talking about this.”

“We’re talking about this because you get a hard-on every time—”

“I do not get a hard-on every time—”

“Say that to your pants tent next time the lovely Miss Potter uses an SAT word in casual conversation,” Lily said in a tone that graphically illustrated how much joy she took in harassing him.

“There is no pants tent!”

“Say that to your pants tent.”

“It’s— Gah!”

The grin Lily flashed was smug.

“You know what,” Ben said after Lily had downed the dregs of her last whiskey sour and ordered a new one with a wink at the bartender. “You are, objectively, the worst, and I have no idea why I’m friends with you.”

“Are we friends? Gross.”

“You’re gross.”

Lily thought for a second, and then nodded.

“I’ll drink to that.”

Predictably, this went south fast, because Ben’s _perfectly average-sized body_ just happened to have a (totally uncorrelated) low tolerance for alcoholic beverages, and Lily Wright just happened to have a magic liver, or something.

Whatever.

It got sloppy fast, is all, and because Lily couldn’t let anything go, they ended up back on the kink-that-wasn’t-a-kink, which led to unsubtle whining about Sammy, which led to—

“For fuck’s sake, would you two just make-out already?”

“No! We would not! No one is making out, shut up!”

“Ben, please. _Please_. I am begging you from the bottom of my withered, calcified heart—please just fucking kiss him, tell him you want to have his gaybies, whatever you want to say—just do it. Watching you two is exhausting.”

“It sounds like you’re saying that we’re dancing around each other. That’s what you’re saying, right? That we’re dancing? Sammy’s a terrible dancer, Lily, why?”

“You’re not wrong,” she said, distracted for a moment. “Guy’s got two left feet, I swear.”

“Or three,” Ben said. “Insert tripod joke here.”

“Please don’t. And don’t distract me. I’m on a mission.”

“Jack in the Box Jesus. Can you pick another mission? One that doesn’t involve looking too hard at things I’m avoiding?”

“No. Pull out your magnifying glass, Arnold, because we’re _going there_. We’re looking. Right here, at your big, gay-ass crush on Sammy gay-ass Stevens, who could really use something good right now.”

And see, she had a point. Sammy needed good things in his world, like hugs and kittens and Loretta’s pecan pie. Like someone to point out the bright spots he couldn’t find on his own. Like someone to sit with him after the nightmares, and hold him after the panic had passed, and pet his hair, and tell him stupid stories to take his mind off the dreams and the shadows and the pressing, smothering uncertainty of his entire world.

(Did Ben provide most of those things, and more? Yes, he did. Yikes.)

“But Jack,” Ben said, his voice coming out sadder than he’d have ever let it, were he sober.

The pause before Lily spoke was almost unnoticeable. Ben wondered if that was healing or habituation.

“Before he met Sammy, Jack was the most polyamorous person alive,” she said.

“Is.”

This pause was longer, a hole in the soundscape filled with the clink of ice cubes as Lily shotgunned the last third of her drink.

“Is,” she echoed. It was a concession he knew she’d go back on immediately, but it was something. “And he’d want Sammy to be happy.”

“What’s with the ‘Before Sammy,’ though?”

Lily eyed Ben, assessing.

“Sammy wasn’t into the poly thing,” she admitted, and while her tone was as direct and unflinching as always, he could hear some remorse there, like she didn’t want to tell him this. Ben’s heart sank. Which was stupid, because he was absolutely not invested in the idea of Sammy being open to having multiple partners.

“I doubt it occurred to him that polyamory’s just as much about loving multiple people as it is about fucking them, though,” she added, pointedly. “Jack leaned towards the latter, and Sammy’s never been wild about the idea of sleeping around, so I’m willing to bet that he assumed poly is just a lot of wild group sex. And then he and Jack got together, and Jack hopped on the monogamy train for the love of a good ginger dicking down.”

“One: Ew. Two: There’s a ‘but’ here, isn’t there?” _Please let there be a but._

“ _But_ ,” Lily said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Right now, he loves two people. He’s already there. He just needs to recognize it and man up.”

“Or woman up,” Ben said.

“Don’t police my inclusivity, cis boy,” she shot back.

He held his hands up, a silent _sorry, sorry_.

“Fair,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Mmhm,” she said.

“Wait,” Ben said, water glass halfway to his mouth as he caught up with what she’d said. “What do you mean, he loves two people?”

He knew what she meant, but he needed it said.

“Much though I say otherwise, often and fervently, you’re not an idiot, Arnold. You know what I mean,” she said, the sass at a surprising low. She mostly sounded tired, and painfully sincere. “He loves you, and judging by the way he looks at you like the sun shines out your ass, I’d guess it’s just as much as he loves Jack. It’s disgusting, but, you know. Kind of sweet. Love’s a good look on him.”

“Everything’s a good look on him,” Ben mumbled.

“You live with him, so I’m gonna trust that you know that’s bullshit. I know you’ve encountered him on day five without a shower.”

Ben had encountered this, yes. It wasn’t great, but even a depressed and smelly Sammy was a pretty Sammy. 

“By day three, his hair could house literal birds,” he said. Lily snorted.

“He needs a fucking haircut.”

“Or to let me explain conditioner and hair masks to him.”

“How does anyone ever think you’re straight?”

“It’s a mystery,” Ben said.

They were quiet for a few minutes after that, finishing their waters (which Ben had, improbably, succeeded in bullying Lily into drinking) and paying tabs, before Ben spoke up again.

“I didn’t know he played piano,” he said.

“ _God_ ,” Lily said, a strangely winded thing, pausing with her jacket halfway on. She breathed, finished with her jacket, and spoke with her eyes fixed on the buttons as she did them up. “There’s a lot of bad shit in the world, but—and don’t tell him I said this—I hold that Sammy quitting the piano is one of the worst things there is.”

“That’s saying something,” Ben said, surprised. He agreed, obviously, but Lily saying it was a lot.

“Yeah, it is. But it’s true.”

* * *

Conclusion: He had to get Sammy playing again.

This was easier said than done. Sammy was like a cat—the harder you tried to get him to do something, the more he dug his feet in, and yowled, and squidged around to find that one hole in your defenses you thought was too small for him to fit through only for him to squeeze right on out and take up residence under the couch for the next week. And Ben was a pusher, so they were at a distinct disconnect, methodologically.

Emily pointed this out to him two days later while they were on the way to Troy’s for dinner, because she was the vice president of the Burst Ben’s Bubble Committee.

(She and Sammy and Troy insisted that they were actually the Keep Ben Grounded Committee, but he knew a conspiracy when he saw it.)

“Benny,” she said while he was pausing for a breath mid-ramble. “I don’t think this is going to yield the results you want.”

“Why not? It’s perfect—Betty’s got a piano she wants out of the house, Sammy needs a piano, there’s that weird empty space in the living room, and I was thinking of putting a new bookshelf there but—”

“Yes, I know,” she said, the kindness of her tone not disguising the fact that she was cutting him off. She glanced at him sidelong before focusing on the road. “You’ve said. And it’s sweet of you— _so_ sweet, to want to do this for him. And it’s sweet of Betty to give you the piano. But it sounds like Sammy’s got some baggage here.”

“Sammy? Baggage? Never!”

Emily tisked and batted at him, but she was smiling.

“Be nice,” she said, and then laughed, a soft, happy little thing as Ben caught her hand in his and kissed her palm.

“I’m always nice,” he said, settling back in his seat. And then sighed, because he could see where Emily was coming from.

He didn’t want to, but he could.

As if she heard the acknowledgment of her point, she touched his shoulder again, sweetly this time.

“I’m not saying there’s not a way to make it work,” she said. “I just don’t think sudden acquisition of an instrument he has a rocky history with is the way to go here. You can’t push him into this—he has to choose it for himself.”

A form of artistic expression wasn’t the same thing as a radio contract. He was working on wearing Sammy down to sign the new damn contract, and he would get him yet. But he couldn’t force Sammy’s hands onto the piano. He couldn’t force Sammy’s heart into the music.

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t so smart,” Ben groused.

“No, you don’t,” Emily replied sunnily.

“No, I don’t,” he agreed.

Things would be easier, on a certain level, if he didn’t have her to open his eyes to things he could be doing better. But only because it wouldn’t involve doing the work to grow. Also, his barreling head first into shit didn’t work out all that great a lot of the time, anyway, so at the end of the day, forethought did actually make his life easier. Snap decisions were simple on the surface, but managing the fallout was far from it.

No snap decisions here, then. No snap decisions, no fallout.

He didn’t want fallout. He wanted a happy, piano-playing Sammy.

Piano-playing was possible, which meant the happiness might be, too. And this caught him. This compelled him.

This, he told himself while he ate dinner with Emily, Troy and Loretta: Sammy could be happy again. And he told himself again when they fussed at Troy and Loretta to sit the hell down and let them do the cleaning up: Sammy _would_ be happy again. And on the ride back to Emily’s house: happy Sammy happy Sammy _happy Sammy_.

He stopped thinking about it for a while because Emily’s new strap-on harness had arrived while they were out, and that was. Well. Yeah.

But in the morning, he was right back there with an imaginary, joyous Sammy. Only, in the light of day, he couldn't ignore the current, _un_ happy Sammy. This version lodged himself again in Ben's brain.

He found Emily at the kitchen table, reading her well-loved copy of _Orlando_. She was sleepy-eyed and tousled, and so lovely that he could almost convince himself the ache in his chest was all love.

It was mostly love.

It was also the fact that Sammy was at home alone, having had a quiet night in. He had explicitly said he wanted that, but Ben couldn’t get rid of the image of Sammy watching History Channel documentaries in the dark with a bottle of whiskey, hating himself. Ben thought, _Oh, fuck_. Sammy, alone. Sammy, left to his own devices.

Ben knew he needed to trust Sammy better. He had come so far from that nightmare of a night in Perdition Wood. The darkest times were behind them. No more were the days of Sammy being a man-shaped hole in the universe, or the days of discovering that the medicine cabinet had been rifled through while he wasn’t looking. The days of expecting to wake up to an empty apartment and a note taped to the fridge.

Sammy got out of bed on his own steam most of the time now. He didn’t fight Ben every single time he dragged him out of the apartment. He laughed.

But Ben was still scared. Some days, he woke up certain that Sammy was gone until he leapt out of bed and looked into the living room, and there was Sammy, already awake and reading a Walker Percy novel.

Ben recalled Sammy’s tired sigh when he hugged him after those moments. It was a sigh that said he knew what Ben had been thinking. It said that it hurt.

Ben would understand if it hurt that he was having such a hard time trusting him again. It was selfish of him, sitting around all caught up in distrust and his own hurt, when his best friend was fighting a war of attrition with grief and a long-neglected mental illness. Where did he get off, being mad that Sammy had wanted a night to himself after months of Ben hovering?

Was he mad about that? He hadn’t known he was mad about that. Huh.

He just wanted Sammy to be happy. He wanted it to not be a struggle every day, and he wanted to know that Sammy was staying beside him, and he wanted Sammy to have things he loved. Things that could be depended on to bring light to his day.

Ideally, that would be Jack. But Jack was still out of reach, and Ben was having no luck in his research. The piano might work, though. The piano was actionable.

Ben could feel himself obsessing, but these things had a tendency to crawl under his skin and not give him peace until he gave into the compulsion to _fix_.

“Benny?”

Emily’s voice was gentle, and he realized that he had gotten stuck staring at the coffee pot and picking at a torn cuticle until it bled.

“Shit,” he said, sticking the side of his thumb in his mouth to swipe away the blood. Emily made a quiet noise of distress and pulled his hand away. “Sorry. I spaced out.”

“It’s okay, sweetie,” she said. “Come sit down and I’ll get you a bandaid.”

He grabbed his coffee cup and sat, despite his urge to protest. This had happened enough times that he knew he was in for at least three days of Emily tenderly bandaging all the fingers with even mildly enticing picking spots. It helped her feel better, and he was at least smart enough to realize that what helped her eventually helped him.

When she came back, he let her tend to his dumb, fidgety hands.

“Sorry,” he said again, quietly.

“Apologize to me by letting all of these heal, okay?” She didn’t sound as upset as she had when she’d first realized this was a thing. Probably it had dawned on her that it could be a whole lot worse, and at least it was unconscious. It wasn’t like he was cutting or anything. Recently.

“Okay,” he said.

Emily finished with the bandaids (four this time, though she had actively considered a fifth) and looked at him searchingly.

“What were you thinking about?”

Ben sighed, caught himself in the impulse of setting nail to what would usually be skin but was currently a fabric bandage, and sighed harder.

“Sammy,” he said. “It’s stupid. I’m just worrying about what he’s doing right now. And the piano thing. Jack. Everything.”

Emily nodded and sipped her tea.

“Would it help to call him?”

“No,” he said, rubbing at his forehead. “He’s probably still asleep, and I’d feel worse about waking him up than I do right now. It’s fine.”

“It doesn’t have to be fine, honey,” Emily said. She took his hand in hers, brushed a thumb across his knuckles. “You’re scared for him, and that makes sense. I’m scared for him too.”

“But being scared for him doesn’t _help_ ,” he said. His voice cracked, revealing the wealth of anxiety beneath. He was all jagged edges and ill-fitting bones, and he screwed his eyes shut. “I want to lock him in the apartment with nothing but books and the XBox and—and a lifetime supply of protein smoothies. How does that help? He’s not a baby, I can’t wrap him up in a swaddling cloth and shove him in a papoose and carry him around all day, but I want to, because how else am I supposed to keep him safe?”

Emily’s eyes were sad when he met them, and he felt tears crawl up his throat.

“Can I say something that might be hard to hear?” she asked.

'No’ was so clearly an acceptable answer to her that his urge to say it was short-lived.

“Yeah.”

She let out a slow breath, squeezing his hand with both of her own.

“It’s not your job to keep him safe,” she said. He started to interrupt, but she cut him off. “No, Benny—listen. Being an adult is about making choices about your life, and about yourself. A lot of the choices are unconscious ones, but even those are still choices. And we all have to learn how to take responsibility for the things we do. Even, and especially, the things we do to ourselves.”

She spoke in a slow, measured fashion, making sure her words made a steady landing.

“Sammy needs love, and Sammy needs help, and these are healthy things to need openly. But he also needs to take responsibility for himself and his pain. Only Sammy can hurt Sammy in the ways you’re scared of, and you can’t protect him from that, because only Sammy can _help_ himself the way he needs. That’s his job. Your job, for as long as you want it, is to love him and to be a safe space. And you’re already doing such a wonderful job of that, Benny. Does that make sense?”

It made sense. Ben hated it, and if it were a physical object, he would fling it into the fires of Mount Doom—but it made sense.

He put his head down on the table. Emily slipped her smart, lovely fingers into his hair and gave him the _good_ scritches, and his heart hurt a little less.

“Can I still manipulate him into playing the piano again?” he asked, a whine in his voice.

Emily laughed softly.

“I think you should find out why he quit, first,” she said. “And actually talk to him about it. But that could be good for him.”

“Ugh,” Ben said. “ _Talking_.”

She puffed out a smaller laugh and pet his hair more.

* * *

It wasn’t that Ben was scared to ask Sammy about his backstory, but Ben was scared to ask Sammy about his backstory. Those conversations had a tendency to turn into fights about Sammy’s need for privacy versus Ben’s need for information. (“How can I help you if I don’t know what’s happening?”)

Better, though, to rip the bandaid off, and so he asked that night while he was picking his literal bandaids off.

“Can I ask you about the piano thing?”

Sammy hesitated long enough that he died in the game he was playing. Link flopped over sadly on the TV screen while a moblin lumbered away.

“What about it?” Sammy asked, watching the loading screen.

Ben glanced at him, taking in the tightness in his jaw and the way he was gripping the Switch controller.

“Why did you quit?”

The game respawned Sammy at the top of a Sheikah tower and he hit pause. Ben watched him chew on his lip, and was about to tell him _it’s okay, nevermind, sorry_ when Sammy inhaled and leaned back on the couch.

“It’s stupid,” he said. Ben made a noise in the back of his throat and nudged him.

“It’s not stupid, whatever it is,” he said.

Sammy closed his eyes.

“The years after I graduated were a special kind of hell,” he said after another long pause. “I had a few good months in Stockton. School had given me a lot of connections, so I got a decent number of gigs. It was good. And then Jack and Lily wanted to move back to San Diego, and I thought, hey, cool, new scene. Closer to LA.”

He sighed.

“Turns out, being a successful musician is a lot more about luck and the people you know than it is about talent. I kissed a few of the right asses and got a couple accompanist jobs, but that was it. I tried for grad school, but the only one I got accepted to wouldn’t give me financial aid. And then I got this concert series, and I thought _Finally, it’s happening_ ,” he said, brow furrowing. He scowled at the ceiling.

“It was supposed to be a three-part thing, me and some people from a local chamber orchestra. Rehearsals were a shitshow, because the violist was a catty asshole, and the horn player was flat more often than not. And I hadn’t played for an audience in a way that meant anything in almost two years. So before the performance, I got nervous,” he said, voice slowing. “Just apocalyptically nervous. I fucked up one entrance near the beginning, and it got in my head so I fucked up _more_ , and it snowballed until I basically forgot what I was playing. We had to completely stop at one point. It was a fucking disaster, and the recital hall director cancelled the other two performances.”

“Jeez,” Ben said. “That’s rough. Like— _Jeez_.”

Sammy laughed humorlessly.

“That’s one word for it,” he said. Restless, he tugged his hair out of its deteriorating bun and dragged his hands through its length a few times before putting it back up.

“There was this one review that raked us over the coals. And after that, I couldn’t do it anymore,” he said. “I just— They tell you in school that it’s like this. That it’s networking, and it’s learning to deal with rejection, and it’s being willing to work minimum wage day jobs so you’re free for rehearsals at night and still able to pay rent on a shithole, roach-infested apartment. Logically, I knew what I was in for, but it felt worthwhile for the chance to make music.”

His voice got rough and Ben put a hand on his shoulder to steady him.

“And then I was out in the world and the reality of it sucked all of the joy out of music. That’s why I played in the first place, you know? The _joy_. It was the only bright spot for miles for most of my life. And then that was gone, it was _work_. It was drudgery and auditioning for things and not even getting a call to say they’d given the spot to someone they already knew. It was stocking frozen pizza at Vons and going home to find out the water had been shut off because yet another pipe had burst in the building. I just couldn’t,” Sammy said. He paused again, longer this time while he choked down tears.

Ben wished he hadn’t brought this up, because he felt like he had caused this pain Sammy was mired in. The pain had already been there, though, locked deep under the surface along with all of the other parts of himself that Sammy refused to contend with.

“Sammy,” he said unevenly.

Sammy shook his head and finished. In for a penny and all that.

“We had the radio show by then, sort of by accident, so I stopped playing after my last accompanist gig ended. I sold my piano a few months later, which Jack and Lily flipped out about, but we needed the money, and I needed to stop staring at the damn thing.”

Ben was, in that moment, very glad for Emily Potter taking the time out of her brilliant, beautiful day to talk him down from impulsively dropping a piano in Sammy’s lap. _Jack in the Box Jesus_.

He began picking at the bandaid on his index finger.

“And you haven’t played since then?”

Sammy shook his head.

“No. It’s been ten years.”

 _Ten years_. Well, that wasn’t good.

None of it was good. He had assumed that Sammy quitting the piano had something to do with Jack disappearing, or the advent of Shotgun Sammy. Neither of those would have been good either, but he could have worked with it. If it was just a matter of existential dread, then Ben could talk him around by spinning things. But this was a fucking mess. It wasn’t about other disasters—it was its own concrete cataclysm.

He entertained the thought that this might not be something he could fix. He hated it even as he thought it.

“I’m sorry, man,” he said, moving to hug him. “And for the record, that isn’t stupid. At all.”

Sammy sighed into the hug, arms going around Ben’s waist as he dropped his head into the crook of Ben’s neck.

“Thanks,” Sammy said. His hair tickled Ben’s neck and he staunchly ignored the little rush of goosebumps.

“Any time, buddy,” Ben said, giving him a good squeeze.

He waited until Sammy’s hold loosened to pull away. It took longer than was maybe normal, but their hugs had been lingering things for a while now.

Once they were settled again, Sammy unpaused Breath of the Wild and picked up where he had left off.

“I can’t believe a moblin killed you,” Ben said. “You have thirteen hearts, dude.”

“Yeah, well, I was surprised,” Sammy replied. He had recovered enough for a dash of sass to creep into his voice.

“It would help if you were wearing literally anything other than the desert voe gear.”

“Do not diss the desert voe gear,” Sammy said, playing at being offended. “A designer lovingly crafted this outfit so we could all stare at this tiny elf twink’s bare back.”

“Bareback, huh?”

“Don't knock it till you try it,” Sammy said, amusement curling his lips and putting a sparkle in his eyes.

"How did I _ever_ think you were straight?"

Sammy laughed, and Ben knew he could let this go. He _should_ let it go. He spent enough time pushing Sammy’s buttons, what with the constant contract haranguing, and this wasn’t necessary in the slightest. But.

 _But_.

“My mom wants to give us her piano,” he blurted. Sammy tensed again. “That’s why I asked. I was going to just surprise you with it, but Emily pointed out that that might not have been a _great_ idea, since I didn’t know what had, you know, happened.”

Sammy pushed a breath out his nose and rubbed at his forehead.

“Ben,” he started, and stopped. After a minute, he continued. “I can’t just start again.”

“Why not?” Ben asked, turning sideways on the couch so he could fix the full force of his intensity on Sammy. “It’s a free piano, and I could leave when you wanted to play if that helps!”

“It’s not— Jesus. It’s been ten years, man.”

“And?”

“It wouldn’t be the same,” Sammy said. He got to his feet, moving as if to leave.

“Sammy, stop,” Ben said, scrambling up after him. “What do you mean? Because you’re out of practice? Because bad shit happened last time?”

“Yes,” Sammy said, exasperated and a little pissed off. “I’m 35, I’m not gonna start playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star again like it’s not fucking humiliating. Skill atrophies. There’s nothing left of what I had.”

“Do you want me to call Emily and get into the brain science of why that’s bullshit?” Ben said, twice as exasperated and half as mad. “You built it up once, so it’ll build up faster the second time. You need this, Sammy!”

“I _need_ this?” His expression was thunderous. Sometimes he was so tall that it was a little scary. He _loomed_. “Like I need to sign the contract? Like I needed to stay in King Falls? That’s what _you_ need, Ben. Get your head out of your ass and stop telling me how to live my life.”

“I’m just trying to help you, dude,” Ben said, too loud. He was close to tears, because his stupid tear ducts were hardwired to _angry_ and _tired_. “I’m trying to give you something to do other than sit here and hate yourself. You won’t sign the contract, fine, I can’t force you. But I can tell you that this isn’t fucking sustainable, Sammy. You’re barely here, and it feels like you’re just doing it to humor me, so please, for fuck’s sake, do something for yourself! Take a walk, play the piano, start a goddamn thought journal, _I don’t care_. Just take an interest in the world again so I know you’re not gonna fall off the face of the earth when I’m not looking.”

Sammy stared at him, chewing on words until they left him on a sigh. The tension dropped out of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know I’m not—”

He lifted a shaky hand and thumped against his sternum a few times, an unconscious grasp for grounding. Ben gave him space to find his words.

“I know I need to change things. That it’s not working, what I’m doing. Not that I’m _doing_ anything. I’m breathing, and I’m leaving the house, but it has to be more, and I know that.”

Guilt dropped into Ben’s stomach like a lead paperweight.

How dare he tell Sammy he wasn’t trying hard enough? Ben knew what it was like for every breath to be a mountain to scale. He knew the heft and texture of self-hatred like he knew the pattern of scars on his thighs.

Sammy was giving every day his all, and it wasn’t his fault that his all looked so very different from what Ben wanted.

“God, Sammy,” Ben said, longing to reach for him but unsure it would be welcome. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. You’re doing so good, man, and I know it’s hard. You’re bench pressing a buffalo every time you get out of bed, and I know that, and I don’t want to make you feel like it’s not enough.”

Sammy shuffled back to the couch and sat, head in his hands.

“It’s _not_ enough,” he said. “I’ve been here before, Ben. I know how it goes, and I know that right now I’m just picking open old wounds for an excuse to keep feeling like this. Because it’s easier to stay still than to try at things again and risk failing.”

Ben was at a loss for words, which was a rare and troubling experience. Usually he solved it by screeching in rage, or doing rash things like kissing Emily Potter with all the life in him. But this wasn’t a screeching or kissing moment. This was a sit down and hold your friend’s hand and demonstrate you’re there for them moment.

So Ben sat down and took one of Sammy’s big, warm hands between both of his, and said, “Whatever you wanna do, I’m here.”

Sammy released a shaky breath and gripped onto Ben’s hand.

“I love you, man,” he said.

For a split second, Ben thought this was a confession and his heart leapt.

But no. They traded ‘I love you’s like shiny Pokemon cards. They were treasured, but plentiful.

“I love you, too,” Ben said, taking the hand Sammy hadn’t latched onto and wrapping his arm around Sammy’s back.

For a while, they just sat together, sharing warmth and heartbeats. Ben thought about how he had no idea what Sammy was thinking about, and then he thought about labor and how endless it was, and then he just thought about how good Sammy’s aftershave smelled.

“You _have_ been looking for a way to fill up that empty space,” Sammy said, gesturing towards the awkward, blank stretch of floor and wall that Ben had been considering thrifting a bookshelf for.

A hopeful chime sounded in his head and he perked up, hopeful.

“Yeah,” he said. “I have.”

“It’s the perfect size for Betty’s upright.”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Ben said, grinning. “It _is_.”

* * *

Life had done its damndest to teach Ben that most positive change didn’t happen in one fell swoop of good vibes, but Ben was a hopeful creature more than he was anything else. Average height, medium rage, plus-sized hopefulness.

The piano didn’t immediately fix things—because of course it didn’t—and it broke Ben’s heart. The movers brought it from Betty’s house a week after their talk, and they pushed it against the wall, and Sammy tried it out very briefly before he gave up. He looked like he wanted to crawl into a hole in the ground and stay there for the rest of time.

After that, it appeared that Sammy was playing a game of quickdraw with the piano. His eyes darted to it whenever he passed through the living room, like it might pull a secret .44 and shoot him. He had to sit at an angle on the couch so it was out of his line of sight or he wouldn’t stop frowning at it.

Ben thought he might be playing when he wasn’t home, but he wasn’t entirely sure. Betty had sent a few books of music along with the piano, and sometimes their arrangement on top of the piano changed a little. That might have been something, or it might have been nothing.

Regardless, it was a big, oak, upright elephant in the room, and after a point, it started stressing Ben out as much as Sammy. It was just _there_ , waiting to be played. Waiting for Sammy. And Sammy kept eyeballing it like it was a hand grenade with a faulty pin.

The need to _fix_ was overwhelming, but Ben knew this wasn’t something he could make right himself He had prepared himself for that already—he just hadn’t realized it would be so frustrating.

He took deep breaths, though, and he waited. Sooner or later, Sammy would either talk to him or get down to business.

And then Lily came over for dinner, clocked the situation, and told Sammy to get his head out of his ass. The conversation escalated to heights unseen.

“It’s like you’re physically incapable of doing things that are good for you,” she snapped.

“You’re one to talk,” Sammy shot back. “What is that, your third drink of the night? Or did you pre-game?”

“You do not get to call me an alcoholic, Sammy Stevens.”

“Then you do not get to call me a self-sabotaging idiot, Lily Wright.”

“Did I say idiot? I don’t remember saying idiot, but if the shoe fits!”

“Fuck off,” Sammy said, eyes blazing as he reared up out of his chair. “You don’t get to shame me about this, Lily.”

“Good thing I already tried that and failed, then,” she said, springing up after him. “Good thing I’ve had ten years to think about what a pussy you are for walking away.”

“What was I supposed to do? Huh? Keep fighting for something that didn’t want me?”

“ _Didn’t want you_ my left tit,” Lily spat. “You ran for the hills at the first sign that the career was gonna be actual goddamn work. That you’d have to learn how to not fling yourself off a bridge over every slight.”

“Lily,” Ben cut in, sharp and furious. “Not fucking cool.”

She exhaled like she was breathing fire, nostrils flaring wide. Her cheeks were darker than their usual golden brown.

“Fine,” she spat. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not,” Sammy growled. “You’re saying exactly what you mean to say, because you think if you piss me off enough, I’ll cave.”

“I’m actively trying to talk you _out_ of caving, Stevens,” she shot back.

“So, what? You want me to say, _oh, no, you’re right Lily, I made a mistake then and I’m making a mistake now, let me fix that_? I’ll get right on it. Louis Lortie won’t know what bit him once I’ve had a few hours to polish up my Études.”

“Christ on a cracker, can you take the drama queen act down a notch?”

“Fuck you, Lily,” Sammy said, finality in his tone, which Lily ignored.

“I don’t know why it surprised me when you fucked off after Jack disappeared,” she said, her voice cold. “You’ve run away from everything you cared about since I met you. Music, the show, Jack. How long before you run from him, too?”

She jerked a thumb at Ben, who ground his teeth so hard it was a miracle nothing broke. He started to cut in, but she talked over him with a biting laugh in her voice.

“Oh, wait. I forgot. You already tried that, and you failed.”

The room echoed with the aftermath of her words, and then Ben snapped into action. 

“You’re done, Lily,” he growled as he shoved his way between her and Sammy. They had moved close enough that part of Ben was scared there would be an actual, honest to god fight, and he had great interest in cutting that off. “Go home, _now_.”

Lily stared at Ben the way the bull stares down the matador. He didn’t blink, and as he watched, her words caught up with her. She paled, her eyes widening as she glanced up at Sammy. She opened her mouth to speak.

“Lily,” Ben said again, warning. She looked at him again, and the tiny part of him that was capable of anything other than blind rage marveled at the sight of a cowed Lily Wright.

When she moved away, she did so carefully, like she expected her legs to crumple beneath her. Reeling, Ben watched her gather her bag and slink from the room.

Lily hesitated with her hand on the door handle, and looked back at them.

“I’m sorry, Sammy,” she said, voice heavy with genuine remorse, and left.

Ben counted out ten seconds before turning around to look at Sammy.

His eyes were glassy and hectic, and Ben's first instinct was to hug him, but he held back. After months of sitting vigil with Sammy's nightmares, he knew better than to try to touch him when he had that look on his face. Sammy was toeing the edge of a cliff, and even a gentle touch would push him over.

Instead, Ben stood close and sought Sammy's gaze.

"Hey," he said quietly. Sammy's eyes flickered to him, and Ben dug a small smile from his emergency stash. "You're here."

Sammy swallowed, gaze darting across Ben's face .

"I'm here," he replied. "It fucking sucks."

"I know, man. Do you wanna go for a drive?"

This was the question, now, instead of _Are you okay?_ The answer to that would always be no, but he could say yes to a drive. Sammy thought about it for a minute before nodding.

"Okay," Ben said.

The air outside was dead in the aftermath of the day’s heat, but Ben gulped down a lungful anyway. The scent of food in the kitchen had become smothering the higher tempers flared and he was desperate to rid himself of it.

They got into Ben’s car and rolled the windows down, and Ben steered them out of downtown towards Route 72.

Step one of The Night Drive was to hold silence. At least one of them was usually overstimulated and spiraling, and they'd figured out fast that music or talk radio made them crawl out of their collective skins.

Step two was to let the silence last for at least five minutes. The point of driving aimlessly was the liminality, and that took time to sink in. You had to settle into the motion, to figure out how to let go and breathe into it.

Step three was more of a rule: The person in the passenger seat got to decide what happened after steps one and two were done.

Ben usually chose a long, explosive rant, followed by tears. Sammy's go-to was a deep sigh and slowly relaxing into his seat, followed by a less charged kind of quietude.

The sigh didn’t happen this time. Ben was waiting for it while Lily’s words swirled in his mind, and he thought up a hundred ways to make her regret them. He was fuming, and the speed limit was an imaginary thing.

Sammy broke into his thoughts, his voice tired.

“I wasn’t running away from you,” he said.

“I know,” Ben said without hesitation. “She’s full of shit.”

There was a pause, and he glanced to find Sammy staring out the window.

“Is she?”

“Jack in the Box—” Ben lifted a hand from the wheel to rub at his face, palm rasping over his stubble. “Of course she is, Sammy. She’s angry, and she's drunk, and she lets that talk for her, and hoo boy, was that angry drunk bullshit. Just a colossal amount of bullshit.”

“Some of it, yeah,” Sammy said. “But she’s right. All I do is run away as soon as things get hard.”

“Any sane person would run from the shit you’ve been through,” Ben said fervently.

“You didn’t run from finding Emily. It nearly killed you, but you didn’t run.”

“I said _sane_ person, man,” Ben said. “I’m cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, don’t use me as a metric.”

“You’re not— God, Ben, don’t say that,” Sammy said, turning to frown at him. “You’re a goddamn hero.”

“I’m a guy who’s really good at throwing himself at immovable objects, and sometimes I’m lucky enough to find an angle that breaks them,” he said. “And we’re not talking about me.”

Sammy sighed.

“It sounds like we _should_ be talking about you,” he muttered. But he knew when Ben wasn’t going to budge, and this was one of those moments.

“Sure,” Ben said, reaching blindly to pat Sammy’s knee. “Now talk to me.”

The layover between his words and Sammy’s was a long one. The thinking in the passenger seat was nearly audible, and periodically Ben caught the sound of Sammy fidgeting. This was hard for him, so Ben let him pull his thoughts and his wherewithal together. Words cost a lot, sometimes.

“I _was_ running from you,” he said, quiet and small.

The truth was, Ben had known this in the back of his head. It didn’t mean he wanted to have this conversation.

Hesitantly, he asked, “Why?”

Sammy pressed his head into the headrest, teeth gritted like he was fighting down bile instead of words. Maybe he was doing both.

“Because you look at me like I matter,” he said bitterly. “And it makes me think about how wrong that is. It scares me. And I couldn’t handle that, not when I was trying to rationalize leaving.”

He paused over the word _leaving_ , because he didn’t mean leaving. He meant dying.

“You matter,” Ben said, voice cracking. His grip was too tight on the steering wheel and his back ached from tension.

Neither of them spoke immediately, and Ben considered things briefly before taking a legally dubious U-turn to pull into the parking lot of a broken down gas station. He couldn’t drive safely right now.

“What’re we doing?” Sammy asked, managing to be puzzled despite the rawness of his voice.

Everything was too quiet with the car off, and Ben realized that he needed to move. Now.

“We’re walking,” he said, and got out of the car.

Sammy followed after a beat, and Ben watched him. For such a big man, he could look so small sometimes. All six feet and two hundred-something pounds of him condensed down to a singularity of guilt and fear and shame. Ben wanted to tell him it was okay and hold him until he breathed again.

“It’s okay,” he said, gesturing for Sammy to follow him. “I just can’t sit still right now.”

Sammy gazed at him, assessing, before he said, “Okay.”

They fell into step and had gone nearly a quarter mile before Ben had even the foggiest idea of what to say.

“You matter,” he repeated, firm this time. Immutable fact. “To the entire universe, not just me. But can I say something kind of shitty?”

Sammy’s steps faltered.

“I think Lily broke that seal already, so may as well,” he said.

Ben sighed.

“What you tried to do was really fucking selfish, Sammy,” he said.

You step on a piece of glass. It’s very small, the size of a pencil point, and it hurts. If you have a sturdy roommate, you can ask for their help and get it out quickly, and then it’s done.

But say you live alone. Say you have work you can’t call out of, and the pain’s really not so bad if you hobble right. Say you wait to see a doctor until that night, and she tells you the glass has lodged itself in deep. It takes her a long time to find it and get it out.

Which hurts more?

Ben’s body had grown around this shard, had done its best to accept it even as it kept hurting him. It lodged itself in deep, and now he was prying it out and it felt like it took something with it. A drop of his blood, a tattered corner of the kindness he called his soul.

Tears boiled up faster than he could stop them, and he was off to the races.

“I’m just,” he started, and then made an aggravated, desperate noise and dragged a hand through his hair. He pulled at it, hard, and held his breath.

Sammy’s hand found his wrist and squeezed gently, a long-standing gesture to get Ben to let go. That was good. Touch was good, and he relaxed his grip, allowing Sammy tug his hand back away.

Ben sighed.

“I’m tired,” he said, and swallowed around the lump in his throat. “I go to bed, wondering if you’re going to decide you’re not worth the air you breathe and disappear again. I wake up, and I bring you down from a nightmare and I hold you, and I wonder where the breaking point is. I wonder how badly I would have to fuck up for you to decide I’m not worth sticking around for, because that’s what it feels like, Sammy. Like it’s just me keeping you here.”

This was something he had talked around, before. But he had never said it outright. His hands were shaking, and he tried to make himself breathe.

“You know those big balloons they have at the Macy’s parade?” he said, choked up but managing a glint of levity. “Those things have like eighteen tethers. There’s a whole team of people holding the balloons down, and sometimes even that’s not enough, and then the balloon escapes and totally fucks over a random neighborhood in the Bronx when it eventually loses helium and lands on a bunch of apartment buildings. A Garfield balloon got away once, and it was a whole— Okay, no, not the point.”

He waved the thought away.

“What I mean is I’m one person doing something that takes a team. Like, I know Emily and Troy help a lot. But it’s, you know. Still mostly me. I try not to think about it, because if I think about it, I panic, because what is a _future_ anymore? Is it just this? Is it just trying to take care of people and failing, over and over again?”

All attempts at calming himself had failed and he was crying in earnest now and shaking like a leaf. He tried to quell the storm that had taken possession of his stupid body, swiping at his tears and gulping down a few breaths.

“It was Emily, for a while, and now it’s you, and one day my mom’s gonna have lung cancer and it’s just gonna be me, watching her get pumped full of poison and sign a DNR and I’ll have to figure out how to get hospice care covered, except I already know you usually can’t, so then she’ll be dead and I’ll be neck-deep in medical debt and I’m tired. And I’m scared, all the time, Sammy!” He hid his face in his hands.

“I’m the one who says the world is great, and tries to convince you that life is worth living, and that everything’s possible, when actually it’s fucking _horrible_. Everything hurts, and then we die poor, and that’s it,” he said with a terrible, bitter laugh.

“That’s all I can see. But you need me, so I get up and I find something to be happy about for the day, and I worry about you, and I talk to people, and I worry about you, and I go to bed and stare at the ceiling and _worry_ about you. And that’s okay! I would be worrying about you even if you weren’t going through hell right now. But I just—”

He wanted to scream and throw things and tantrum until he didn’t have a feeling left in him, just so he could stop feeling _this_.

“I don’t know, Sammy. I just wish you hadn’t done that. I wish you’d talked to me instead of writing yourself off as a failed experiment, like you could just go die and it wouldn’t matter to anyone. It would have mattered to _me_. And now I feel so _bad_ , all the time, and like nothing I do helps, because you’re still so fucking sad. Like you’ve got one foot out the door and you’re just waiting for me to look away long enough for you to slip out.”

Until now, Ben hadn’t really known this was in him. He'd recognized bits and pieces, sure, but the complete picture was a horrible, terrible, no good, _very bad_ picture. He made jokes about Sammy’s emotional bullshitting skills, but honestly, he could probably beat him in a repression contest any day of the week. As soon as something too big to fix cropped up, he shoved it in a box and mummified it in packing tape and hid it in the dankest, darkest corner of his brain-basement. He pushed it down, and he found something he could fix. Something he could throw himself into hard enough that he didn’t have time to look at himself in the mirror and see the veneer starting to chip away at the corners.

He was so lost, and he couldn’t afford to be lost. He had too much shit to do.

Sammy’s hands on his shoulders felt sudden, even though he had probably telegraphed the movement in case Ben wanted to pull away. Ben wasn’t paying attention, though, and so he twitched a little before letting out a shaky breath and gripping Sammy’s arm. He felt like he was dying, but then Sammy touched his cheek to wipe away some of the tears, and wrapped him up in his arms.

It was one of those hugs that made you feel like nothing bad in the world could get you. In this space, you were safe. You were allowed to be small and soft, and if you were hurting, you could hurt, and if you were happy, you could sigh a happy sigh.

Ben cried like a little baby with his face pressed into Sammy’s chest. He thought Sammy might be crying, too, but he had a hard time focusing on anything that wasn’t the tightness in his chest or Sammy’s hand cupping the back of his head.

Where was he supposed to go from here? He had said unforgivable things to the last person on earth who needed to hear them, and shit like that changed the landscape. He couldn’t take it back. How could he go back to telling Sammy he was doing well while they both knew this was in him?

And then, Sammy’s voice. Sammy’s breath, ruffling his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and he didn’t sound as shattered as Ben expected.

“Don’t apologize,” Ben said, rearing back to gape at him. “Jesus, Sammy, I just— I shouldn’t have said any of that! Again! None of that is your fault, please just—don’t listen to me. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Hey,” Sammy said steadily. His hands found Ben’s shoulders again, their grip firm and grounding. “You needed to say that, and I needed to hear it.”

“I— what?”

“That was festering, man,” Sammy said. “I could feel it, but I was too chickenshit to just ask, and so I let you sit there and hurt. It was selfish, but it was the easy thing to do. I’ve been so fucking selfish, and I’m so sorry, and I’m gonna fix it.”

Ben had a lifetime’s worth of questions.

“Which part? How do you fix— I don't know, _any_ of it? Depression, trauma, existential horror?”

“You find something else to focus on,” Sammy said, “until you’re stable enough to open the box again.”

“Look, Sammy,” Ben said, carding a hand through his hair again only for Sammy to pull it away again. “You’re not something to be fixed, and I don’t want you to just sweep everything you’re feeling under the rug. You’re hurting, and you get to live in that, and—”

“And I get to make choices to try to heal,” Sammy said. “I already told you I would do that, but I chickened out because it was too hard.”

“It’s not gonna magically stop being hard,” Ben said, subdued.

“No, it’s not. But accepting that I’m causing you this much pain is even harder. I can’t shoot a UFO out of the sky to help you, but I can look myself in the fucking eye and start taking care of the angry, grieving man I’ve become.”

Sammy’s voice was hot and steely, and Ben loved him with a ferocity that bowled him over and steadied him all at once.

“Okay,” he said, just as intense. “I believe in you, and if you don’t let me help, I’m putting cherry red hair dye in your terrible shampoo.”

Sammy laughed, and there was hysteria in the sound as Ben joined him, but it still rang through him like a bell.

* * *

As if Ben hadn’t had enough emotional upheaval in the last… well, lifetime, Emily dropped a bomb on him the next night.

He had told her about the conversation with Sammy, and the snarl of hope and trepidation now thriving in his belly. And the anger at himself, for starting the whole shitshow.

She reassured him, though, that communicating was good. Pain was an occupational hazard of being a social animal, and while it wouldn’t have been okay if he had flung all of those words at Sammy and fled, it was okay because he stayed and talked.

They had talked long after that, too. The walk back to the car and subsequent drive home were a confused blur of diary-like confessions, and when they were finally home Ben had felt lighter than he had in years. Sammy looked it, too: he was vibrant and alive from the top of his head to the tip of his toes.

It had been incredible.

The long talk with Emily and a tasty dinner led into snuggle time. His head was in her lap while she played with his hair, and he was on his way to becoming a puddle when her fingers stilled.

“Are you in love with Sammy?”

Ben froze so hard that one of his vertebrae actually cracked.

“What? God, Emily, no, I love _you_ , so, so much,” he stammered while he pushed himself up to look at her.

“Benny, honey,” Emily said, wiggling her hands at him with a touch of franticness as he wound up to a panicked rant. Her pretty, pretty brown eyes were saucer-wide. “No, it’s okay. That wasn’t an accusation. I’m sorry—I should have couched that better.”

“How do you _couch_ that? _My dear beloved Benny, I was wondering if I could ask you a big question that involves your best friend and a present fear of infidelity_ ,” he said, high-pitched with panic.

“No, no,” Emily said, grabbing at one of his hands as it flailed past. “Baby, listen. Take a breath.”

He laughed nonsensically, and then took a breath with her guidance.

“Good,” she said after they’d completed three full, slow breaths together.

“Emily, I—”

“Hold on, just a moment,” she said. Her face was open and kind and very clearly not harboring anger. “You said infidelity, and I want to tell you that I’m not worried about that, even a little bit. Mainly because I know you would never cheat on me.”

“I wouldn’t,” he insisted.

“I know. I trust you, and that’s not what I’m talking about.”

“Cheating?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I asked because I’m fairly certain the answer is yes, and I wanted to let you know that I’m open to a discussion about polyamory. I love you, and I trust you, and I love and trust Sammy, and I think it’s something we should talk about.”

Ben was reeling. He had, of course, been harboring a strong vein of guilt over his feelings for Sammy. It felt like he had been cheating on Emily already, just by enjoying Sammy’s company (and Sammy’s ass), so this was hard to catch up with.

He swallowed and took Emily’s hand.

“What makes you think that I’m in love with him?”

She released a breath.

“Benny, I’ve seen you in love every time you’ve looked at me for almost three years. I know what it looks like," she said fondly. "Sometimes you forget to blink when you look at me. And…"

She hesitated, glancing down at their hands.

“And?” Ben asked, heart in his throat.

Her gaze lifted back to him. Unexpectedly, her eyes were warm.

“And you look at Sammy exactly the same way. Like if you blink, you might lose a fraction of a second of him existing, and that's more than you're willing to spare.”

Emily smiled at him— _smiled_ , like she hadn’t uncovered the sordid reality of her boyfriend being wildly in love with his best friend. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and she had a single perfect dimple in her left cheek, and Ben loved her so much that she could literally kill him and he wouldn’t mind.

“And that doesn’t upset you?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation. “I love seeing you in love, and the idea of you having more people to love you in return makes me so happy I could burst. Especially if the ‘people’ is Sammy.”

Her tone went sly at the end, and Ben stared at her. He searched her expression again and again for any trace of anxiety, jealousy, anger, dyspepsia—anything other than love and warmth and patience. She turned his hand over in hers while he thought and traced a finger over his life line.

“He doesn’t want that,” he said finally, fingers twitching under her touch. “Jack is his world. His entire world.”

“A single person can’t be anyone’s entire world,” Emily said gently. “Even in monogamy, we have other people—friends, family, and I think pets count, personally. There’s not a doubt in my mind that Sammy considers you a major percentage of his world.”

“But that’s not love. Like, _love_ love,” Ben said. An ache was building in his chest, in his bones. “He’s not in love with me. I can’t even count the number of times he’s called me his brother.”

“Okay,” she said. She was kneading at the base of his thumb, because Emily Potter was such an angel that her fidgets usually involved tender touch. “I’m just going to say that until he explicitly tells you he doesn’t have romantic feelings for you, you can’t know for sure.”

Ben made a distressed noise in the back of his throat.

“I’m also going to say that Sammy Stevens looks at you like you hung every single star. And Benny, we have a lot of stars over King Falls.”

* * *

Ben came home to Sammy playing the piano.

Sound didn’t register at first. His mind was elsewhere as he trudged across the parking lot, caught in a tangle of worry and the grocery list and station construction and _like you hung every single star_. It took until he was halfway through the door for him to catch up, and then he paused and looked up, and there was Sammy, at the piano.

He was sight reading something, a simple melody that worked with both of his hands. Ben remembered enough of his elementary school piano lessons to know that the hardest part of starting the piano was learning to move your hands in tandem, so he thought _damn_. Because despite being a decade out of practice, Sammy wasn’t doing badly with it.

The tone was a little clunky, and he had a metronome going at a tempo that surely was slower than the composer had intended, but his left hand was keeping up with his right just fine. It was a small thing, maybe, but Ben felt a little twinkle of awe anyway.

He was sure Sammy had heard him come in and had chosen to keep practicing, but he was still wary of disturbing him. This was good, this was _so_ good, and Ben didn’t want him to stop. He shut the door as quietly as possible and set about removing his shoes. Keys on the hook so he didn’t lose them. A sock-footed crossing of the living room to set his bag in his bedroom.

He hesitated for a moment. Should he go back out to get some coffee from the kitchen, like this was normal? Should he stay put to give Sammy space?

Space, he thought. Better to let Sammy practice as unobserved as possible.

Ben settled on his bed with his Switch, knowing he would be incapable of focusing on anything productive while most of his mind was busy listening to Sammy.

But then his hyperfocus took over, and it was forty-five minutes later when Sammy appeared in Ben’s doorway. Ben twitched a little at the sudden figure in his periphery and looked up.

“Hey,” he said, eyebrows lifting. “I didn’t hear you stop playing.”

Sammy puffed a laugh.

“Good,” he said, leaning on the doorframe with his arms folded across his chest. “I got fancier than I needed to and it was pretty terrible.”

“Dude, you’re already doing way better than I ever have,” Ben said, ditching the Switch and sitting up. “I could never get the whole right hand thing.”

“Because you’re a freaky little southpaw,” Sammy said, humor in his eyes.

“Don’t— I’m not— Freaky?"

"I said what I said.

"This smacks of right-hand supremacy, Stevens!”

His voice had gone squeaky with (play) outrage, and Sammy laughed, full-bellied this time.

“I’m ambidextrous, but sure,” he said, grinning.

“Ooh, special snowflake alert!”

“The special-est.”

After that, it was like Sammy had been starving for years and their relatively dinky piano was a Thanksgiving feast. If he wasn’t agreeing to spend time with their friends (a novelty that was becoming less novel by the day), or cooking (an even wilder novelty—who knew he could cook more than overnight oats or a kick-ass pantry pasta?), he was at the piano, or marking sheet music, or listening to recordings of a million different pianists playing the exact same piece.

Generally, good change didn’t happen all at once. But this time, incredibly, it kind of did.

Sammy was frustrated, sure. He got fed-up with his limitations and stormed into his room to berate himself for letting his skill atrophy. Or he slammed his music binder shut with a snap and declared he was going for a walk. The one time Ben went with him, he had a hard time keeping up with Sammy’s angry, long-legged power walking.

But the next day, or even a few short hours later, he would sit back down and begin again. He marshaled his patience and ran scales, tapped rhythms, practiced visually confusing things where he played what sounded like two melodies with one hand. That one, he said, was to relearn how to bring individual notes out of a bunch of other ones, which Ben didn’t get at all until Sammy demonstrated with a hasty Moonlight sonata. Once, without emphasizing the melody, and once with.

It was like he had opened a window in a dim room: suddenly, light.

Bad days grew fewer, and Sammy told him that he had finally internalized that one bad day didn’t instantly transmute all other days into miserable things. He could hold space for that, even if one bad day turned into three. On the fourth day, there would still be sun to lift his face to.

Jack and the Shadowmaker and Ben’s _thought journal_ were still sore subjects. They would always be sore subjects. But Ben wasn’t as scared, now, of sending Sammy back into his cave if he pushed.

(He had, of course, pushed anyway when he was still scared. But this was better.)

And the contract. He still wouldn’t sign it.

He wasn’t as angry about it, though. Ben knew he would sign it some day soon.

So really, things were good. Better. Ben saw a future that wasn’t so bleak, and he panicked less, and when he helped Sammy down from nightmares, he worried not about breaking points, but about the headache Sammy would get from the lost sleep.

As the fear ebbed, though, Ben found himself mired in so much tender, enormous feeling for Sammy that it shook him to his core.

He knew he had already been in love with him. But now it was different. Sammy was _there_ , fully awake and involved. He lived in his body again. Or maybe for the first time since Ben had met him, he didn’t know.

All he knew was that Sammy Stevens had beautiful hands, and he wanted to kiss every knuckle, every freckle, each broad, warm palm. He wanted to watch him play piano for the rest of his life and marvel at how miraculous wrists were. Or the crinkles at the corners of Sammy’s eyes when he laughed. Or the soft hairs that escaped his bun to curl at the nape of his neck. The even softer ones at his temples that fluffed up on humid days.

How many different colors could strawberry blonde hair be? In one light, it was dishwater pale. In another, it sparkled like goldstone. It went nearly pink in the warm light of the lamp beside the couch.

Ben was incredibly, profoundly screwed.

He couldn’t help getting touchier. He picked lint off of Sammy’s shirt, he bumped knees with him when they squished into the same booth at Rose’s to make space for Troy and Ron, or Mary and Tim, or, once, Emily.

(She had nudged Ben into this with a hand on his hip and a little quirk of her head. Ben learned rapidly that she was very serious about wanting Ben to have a Sammy as well as an Emily.)

This was all well and good. He had always been physically affectionate with his friends, and once he and Sammy had passed the somewhat awkward point of acknowledging the seriousness of their friendship, Ben had been particularly affectionate with him.

Sammy had never really reciprocated, though. There were hugs he instigated, sure. And he knew Ben’s habits enough to reach out and halt the self-destructive ones. But these were usually moments of crisis. It took extenuating circumstances for Sammy to breach the barrier he held himself behind. But then— 

Sammy fixed the hood of Ben’s sweatshirt when it was turned the wrong way out. Sammy passed him in the kitchen with a hand on his back. Ben had a bad day, and he didn’t even have to ask for cuddle time before Sammy was pulling him to the couch for a movie night and tucking him against his chest. Like it was easy. Like he was sure of his welcome.

“Em,” Ben whined at his brilliant, incredible girlfriend on a Sunday night after the three of them had made dinner and played a vicious game of Catan, wherein Sammy had wrestled Ben into a headlock for trying to steal his unfairly robust stock of sheep. There had been the kind of yelling that pretended to be angry but was actually delighted, and there had been noogies, and Ben had gotten away by flailing an arm around until he found Sammy’s hair and pulled. Sammy made what could have been considered _a noise_ and let him go and then Emily decimated both of them in the game, because she was terrifying.

“I know,” she replied, petting him. Sammy was clattering around in the kitchen, scrounging up some of his weird new hippie snacks.

Ben made a noise of distress and Emily kissed his cheek and whispered, “ _Just fucking kiss him, you ding-dong_.”

Ben was absolutely not going to kiss him. It was not going to happen, because he was an adult capable of rationality. Rationality told him that kissing him would go badly, because Jack! Jack.

Actually, it was _super_ not going to happen, because Sammy got _weird_ after that night.

“Are you okay?” Ben asked on day two of Sammy avoiding him. Not that you could really avoid your roommate when neither of you had jobs or much by way of outdoor hobbies. Mostly, he’d just been sort of wooden and aloof.

“Hmm?”

Sammy looked up from his book and blinked before processing Ben’s question.

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, of course.”

Did he look a little guilty, or was that just Ben?

“Okay,” Ben said, drawing out the word. “You’re just being kind of weird.”

“I’m always kind of weird,” Sammy said.

“Well, duh. But I don’t mean the 3-in-1 shampoo-body wash combo kind of weird.”

Sammy rolled his eyes, and were Ben less well-versed in his body language, he wouldn’t have noticed the tension in his shoulders.

“For the last time, that’s not weird. They wouldn’t have made that stuff if there wasn’t a market for it,” he said.

“Capitalism can sell anything. Capitalism invented the market for women’s razors because they produced too much product one year,” Ben said. It was a rehashing of the same old conversation about Sammy’s problematic hygiene habits. 

“And Herschel calls _me_ a communist.”

Internally, Ben sighed. Sammy was clearly intent on his handy little deflection thing, and Ben was too wigged out to fight him on it.

“Okay, _no_ ,” he said, and let his question go. Time was better spent setting Sammy straight. Figuratively speaking.

* * *

Katy Perry was a shithead, but Ben still spent the next week and a half with _Hot N’ Cold_ stuck in his head.

Sammy stopped avoiding him and sat too close on the couch.

Sammy twitched away when Ben tried to fix his collar the next morning, and then on Thursday afternoon, he steered Ben around a lamp post with a hand on the small of his back.

Thursday night, he made excuses to go to bed early rather than spend another evening alone with Ben and the sofa.

Ben was hurt, and confused, and deeply annoyed that he had the line “Got a case of love bipolar” stuck in his head. As a person with bipolar, he was extremely _done_ with shit like that, but it did get a point across.

The point was that he was pissed off at Sammy.

He had no idea what was happening here, but it stung. Did Sammy know Ben had feelings for him and it made him uncomfortable? Was Sammy in the same boat and fighting with himself about it? Was it an unknowable third option? Who knew!

And then they had a coinciding bad day and muscle memory dumped them in a tangle of limbs on the couch, tired and resembling more of a singular blobfish than two grown men.

They grunted at each other about various bullshit, and Ben smacked around on the coffee table until he found the TV remote and put on reruns of The Golden Girls. They were quiet after that, and Ben was almost done being annoyed when Sammy started playing with his hair.

At first, it was just him boinging the curl that had decided to be a perfect corkscrew today. Ben could deal with that, because it was obnoxious. Obnoxious Sammy was harmless.

And then the touch got gentler, more of a shuffling through the mess of curls than a focus on one in particular. And then he fully buried his fingers in Ben’s hair and started scritching, just like Emily did.

It was a running joke in their circle that Emily could reduce him to a puddle like this. Benny getting his scritches because he’s _such a good boy! Yes you are!_ But jokes or not, Ben was genuinely weak for it. And he was weak for Sammy.

He melted into the touch with a happy sigh.

Ben’s ear was pressed to Sammy’s chest, so he could hear his heart tapping out a too-fast rhythm. Ben’s pulse ratcheted up right along with it, and the air was heavy with _something_ , and then Ben was done.

He squirmed out from under Sammy’s arm and all but threw himself into standing.

“Nope,” he said. “No, I can’t do this anymore.”

Sammy was quiet for a handful of Ben’s rapid heartbeats. Ben couldn’t look at him, so he had no idea Sammy was feeling until he spoke.

“You can’t do what?” He was hesitant and a tiny bit wounded.

Ben laughed with an edge of hysteria.

“Can’t do what, he asks!” His voice was too loud, and he paced away, as though a few more feet of distance would help at all. “Like he hasn’t been jerking me around for weeks! What’s it gonna be next, Sammy? Huh? Tomorrow you take a solo trip to Ikea and move into one of the model rooms and don’t come back until you’ve squished down whatever _this_ is again? Take a surprise vacation to hang out with some turtles in Ecuador? Oh, no! I know! You’re gonna stop talking to me for 36 hours again and then give up on it when I have the audacity to call you on it! Jack in the Box Jesus, Sammy! I’m done!”

Because Ben was physically incapable of not looking at Sammy at least once every two minutes when they were in the same room, he looked at him and saw red cheeks and a stricken expression.

“Ben,” he said, uncertain. “I’m not—”

“Don’t ‘I’m not’ me, man,” Ben snapped. He felt like a washing machine full of shoes and broken glass. “You _are_. You’re doing _something_ , and I don’t know what it is, because I’m not a mind reader and you’re categorically opposed to talking to me if I don’t start the conversation my own damn self. But something is wrong, and I think it’s that you _know_ and you’re _uncomfortable_ and you’re trying to figure out how to be _nice_ about it instead of just _telling me_.”

Sammy was wide-eyed and panicked, and usually Ben would feel terrible about eliciting that reaction, but right now he was too twisted up to care.

“Telling you what?” he asked, desperate.

“That you don’t love me back, asshole! Just say it! Because I’m your brother, because you’re engaged, because of whichever of the thousand and one reasons you want to quote, I don’t care! I just need this to stop, Sammy! I’m losing my goddamn mind, because you do things like _that_ ,” he said, flinging a hand towards the couch. “And for a second, I hope, because I’m an idiot! And then you put your bubble back up twice as thick, and I remember where we are, and it _hurts_.”

“Whoa, hey” Sammy said when Ben paused for breath, holding his hands out to Ben. Ben was about to continue, but Sammy spoke louder until he subsided. “Hey! Ben! Ben. Stop. I’m sorry. I— It’s not—”

He shook his head, looking pained.

“You’ve got it wrong.”

“How?” Ben asked. He was practically vibrating with anxiety and ire.

Sammy made a noise of distress and touched a hand to his forehead. It shook a little.

“I didn’t know that you felt like that,” he said. His breathing was growing labored, but he pushed on. The first pang of guilt hit Ben, for upsetting Sammy. “I didn’t know you noticed that I was…”

“Fiddle-faddling?”

He drew up short and squinted at Ben.

“ _Fiddle-faddling_?”

Ben gave an agitated sigh.

“You know, hot and cold. Indecisive. _Being a dick_ ,” he said. The last part was unnecessary, but he was upset, okay?

“Oh,” Sammy said, his gaze darting away guiltily. “Yeah. That.”

“Well, I noticed,” Ben shot back. “Boy howdy, did I notice!”

“I’m sorry," Sammy said. "I didn’t mean to make you— I just. I’m scared, man.”

His voice shook, and Ben stared at him.

“Of _me_?”

“No! God, no,” Sammy said insistently.

“Then what? What are you scared of, Sammy?” _Besides literally everything_.

Sammy looked like he was strongly considering making a break for it. It took him a while to answer while he fought down his flight response and squared his shoulders.

“I’m scared of this,” he said. “Of trying. Of— of loving you.”

Ben could not have heard that right. No way in hell.

“What?” He sounded small and incredulous, which was fine, because he was small and incredulous.

Sammy swallowed and took a step closer.

“I love you,” he said, all fervency in spite of fear. “I love you so fucking much, and that terrifies me, because I don’t know what it means. I love _Jack_. I asked Jack to _marry_ me, and if he came back tomorrow, I’d still drag him to the courthouse before closing time. But I love _you_ , too, and it’s different than it is with him."

He had opened a can of worms, and apparently, he wasn't going to stop until it was empty. Ben was intimately familiar with this experience, but found it unnerving to be on the receiving end.

"He was my safe space before everything went wrong. He made me feel held even when we weren’t in the same room. He made me feel _good_ , truly good for the first time in my life. But _you_ ,” he said, and took Ben's hand. Ben felt like he would burst into flame from the touch.

“There are people in the world who are so vital that you can see it from a mile away. It’s there even when they’re motionless, or exhausted, and they couldn’t contain it if they tried. They’re full of life— _You_ are full of life, and I’ve always wanted to be that. It felt like I was missing some essential part that other people had, and then I met you, and I tried to keep you out, because I’m an idiot. But God himself couldn’t keep you out of the pearly gates of heaven if you set your brilliant fucking mind to it, and now it’s almost four years later and for the first time in my life, I’m alive, Ben. And it’s because of you.”

He cupped Ben’s face in his hand, stroking a thumb along his cheekbone. Ben had no words—Sammy had stolen all of them, and Ben didn’t mind.

“Because you’re headstrong, and passionate, and you move heaven and earth for the people you love, and you’re so fucking _beautiful_ , every second,” Sammy said. “I don’t know what I would do without you, and I don’t ever want to find out.”

There was very literally only one thing Ben could do in that moment, and it was surging up to kiss his big, dumb, perfect best friend with every ounce of passion in him.

At first, it didn’t line up quite right—Ben had moved too fast, and Sammy wasn’t prepared.

But then he caught up and slid an arm around Ben’s waist, using the hand on his cheek to adjust the angle, and it was just right.

It was _perfect_. It was searing, full of all of their usual push and pull, the easy joy of their joking, the heat of their fights. Ben laughed against Sammy’s lips, hands buried in his incredible hair where he had freed it from its already half-undone bun. Sammy’s arm at his waist felt like all that held him up. It may well have been.

Sammy trailed away to kiss his cheek, his jaw, the ticklish spot below his ear.

“Holy shit,” Ben said, winded and ecstatic. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“Only if you don’t kill me first,” Sammy replied, breath hot against delicate skin.

Ben caught Sammy’s face between his hands and pulled him into another kiss.

For a while, this was it: trading kisses both tender and fierce, drinking each other in. And then they slowed by mutual agreement until they finally parted.

Sammy pressed his forehead to Ben’s, eyes closed, breath evening out bit by bit.

“I think I need to sit down,” Ben murmured into this small, sacred space. Sammy laughed a little.

“Me, too,” he said.

They migrated to the couch, Ben slotting in under Sammy’s arm like happy puzzle pieces.

“How are you?” he asked after a cozy stretch of silence.

Sammy loosed a breath. His hand moved again to Ben’s hair, and if Ben could have purred, he would.

“I’m good,” Sammy said. Ben was pressed close enough that Sammy’s rich, melodic voice reverberated through Ben’s bones. “You?”

“I need to update my address,” he said, turning his head to kiss whatever was in reach, which turned out to be Sammy’s chin. “Because I’ve officially relocated to Cloud 9.”

If the feeling of Sammy’s voice had been good, the feeling of his laugh was phenomenal. Literally. It was a phenomenon. One of the miraculous ones, like tardigrades surviving the vacuum of space, or the perfect pancake puppy.

“I’ll set up mail forwarding,” Sammy said. Ben wondered if the light in his chest was bright enough to be seen by the naked eye.

There was more hair petting, and Sammy was so warm and soft that Ben was very nearly asleep when Sammy said, “We should probably talk about this. Right?”

Ben blinked awake and realized one of his hands had found a spot where Sammy’s shirt had gotten rucked up enough to bare the skin of his hip. Regretfully, he withdrew his hand and started the heartbreaking process of sitting up.

“Yeah,” he said, settling sideways on the couch, legs folded. “For sure.”

Sammy’s smile was only a little strained around the eyes, and he shifted around to face Ben more fully.

“Okay,” Sammy said. “So. Just to be clear, we both said _love_ , right?”

Ben was deeply charmed by the fact that Sammy blushed over that when they’d just had their tongues in each other’s mouths.

“Oh,” Ben said, grinning. “Yeah. I guess I didn’t fully say it, but I am, like, mind-blowingly in love with you. Like— _whoo_! It’s been a problem.”

Sammy laughed. Ben was tempted to start counting his laughs, because they were on at least number three now, and it was tremendous.

“Okay, good,” he said. He moved his foot to nudge Ben’s shin. “I love you, too.”

Talking was important, and they were absolutely going to get back to it in a minute, but Ben was legally obligated to lean over to kiss him again for that. Just real quick. For good measure.

Sammy’s hand found his hip, and Ben lost track of things for a bit. He was halfway into Sammy's lap and biting at his lip before he got with the program again.

“Jack in the Box Jesus,” he said, pulling back. “Okay, I’m going back to the other side of the couch now. And we are keeping this pillow right here until after we’ve all the way talked.”

He put a throw pillow between them and settled back into the corner of the couch, watching Sammy do the same with a horribly smug look on his face. This boy was absolutely going to kill him.

“Stop smiling like that,” Ben said, flapping a hand at him. “I can’t work like this!”

The smugness increased as Sammy lifted his eyebrows.

“This is just how my face is,” he said. “And if you had a problem with it, I don’t think we would need a pillow wall.”

“Hey, I have needed pillow walls with plenty of people I didn't find upsettingly hot,” Ben said. “It’s just that the problem there was always wanting to punch them, not jump their bones.”

“A fine distinction,” Sammy said. He was still smiling the crooked, smug little smile, but he had gone distinctly pink again, so Ben would take it.

“Shut up,” he said. “We’re talking.”

“Right,” Sammy replied. He put actual effort into looking more serious this time. Or maybe he was actually serious. “Talking.”

Ben took a steadying breath and went for the topic he most wanted to avoid.

“You mentioned Jack,” he said. Levity left the room, and Ben missed it immediately. “What are you thinking there? Like, it’s both of us? Or is it me now, and then him when he’s home?”

Sammy’s battle with his desire to never, ever talk about Jack was well-documented, so Ben wasn’t surprised in the slightest by the length of his pause or the aversion of his eyes.

“Both of you,” he said finally. He was staring at a fray in the couch cushion, unseeing. “I think. I don’t know how that works, but I’ve thought about it a lot, and neither of you is more important to me than the other one. I can’t imagine choosing between you. I think I _would_ , if I didn’t know that Jack was…”

“Poly?” Ben ventured.

Sammy’s gaze focused on him. He frowned a little.

“Yeah,” he said. “How did you know that?”

Ben started to fidget with his fingers before he caught himself and reached for the silly silicon elephant he kept on the side table, digging his nail into that instead.

“Lily kind of called me on my shit, like, three months ago,” he said. “And I was being pathetic, so she told me that Jack had been doing the poly thing before you got together. And that the monogamy was your idea.”

“It was,” Sammy said once he’d done the requisite processing of the fact that Lily had known about this situation before he had. “The idea stressed me out, but mostly because I’m an insecure idiot. I couldn’t believe he was actually interested in me, or that he would _stay_ interested. I thought that he would leave even faster if he was still seeing other people.”

“And he was cool with that?”

Sammy made a face.

“It was a little bit of a sore subject, at first,” he said. “He wanted me to learn stuff about, I don’t know, attachment styles? And that I could learn security while having an open relationship. But it scared me, and I told him that, and he let it go eventually. It didn’t seem to bother him after that.”

Ben chewed on his lip while he mulled that over. Sammy reached out to press a thumb to his lower lip, gently guiding him to release it. His eyes were soft, and Ben caught his hand before he could move away, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

Time for the biggest, scariest question.

“Do you think he’d be okay with this? Us?”

Surprisingly, Sammy barely had to think about it before he said, “Yes.”

Hope flared in Ben’s chest.

“Really?”

“Yes,” Sammy repeated. “He was— _is_ always telling me to reach for what makes me happy. And he was obviously more than okay with his partner having other partners, before me. So I think… It might be messy, at first. When he comes back. But not because he’s not okay with my being with you, too.”

“Okay,” Ben said. His relief was a heady thing, and he smiled bright and wide at Sammy. “We’ll deal with the mess when it happens, then. I’m here for that.”

Sammy gave him this _look_ then. It spoke of expansive, intense feeling, and Ben heard Emily’s words again.

_Sammy Stevens looks at you like you hung every single star. And Benny, we have a lot of stars over King Falls._

He thought, _Oh_. And he thought, _Yes_. And he thought, _Fuck it_ , and moved the pillow to climb into Sammy’s lap.

Sammy accepted this with ease, wrapping his arms around him to pull him closer.

This was the softest kiss yet, nearly reverent in its tenderness. Sammy held him like something precious beyond words, and Ben did his best to hold him just the same.

A moment or a lifetime later, Ben curled into Sammy’s warmth, putting his head on his shoulder.

Finally, Sammy spoke.

“What about Emily?”

“I think Emily might have an RPF shipping moodboard about us,” Ben said. This surprised another laugh from Sammy.

“You’re kidding,” he said.

“Not really,” Ben said. “She gave me a binder of educational resources on functional polyamory and healthy communication, and then when I was dying after I accidentally pulled your hair the other night, she told me to _just fucking kiss you already_. So I really wouldn’t be surprised if there was a Pinterest board full of aesthetic On Air lights and gay hand-holding somewhere.”

“You know,” Sammy said. “It occurs to me that her and Jack meeting is going to be the end of any peace either of us has ever known.”

Ben laughed, and kissed him, just because he could.

**Author's Note:**

> detailed trigger warns:
> 
> \- Ben has several self-harm behaviors, mostly unconscious, which are directly addressed (picking at nails, vague trichotillomania, and passing reference to cutting)  
> \- Sammy is canonically suicidal and I don't shy away from that. It's not active in this, but there is a lot of reference to his attempt at The Devil's Doorstep, and discussion of his continuing SI  
> \- Major scene involving discussion of the trauma of caretaking, especially caretaking following a suicide attempt  
> \- Codependency!  
> \- Big mean fight between Sammy and Lily! Referenced alcoholism!  
> \- Everyone is fighting battles with mental illness, and that gets messy sometimes! But they all love each other anyway!


End file.
